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Monday, July 2, 2007

Performances by Sir Elton John and the English National Ballet featured in the Concert for Diana, held in Wembley Stadium, London on Sunday to commemorate the late Diana, Princess of Wales life on what would have been her 46th birthday.

As a result of the terror attacks in the United Kingdom on the days prior to the event, heightened security precautions were in force, with a high police presence around the venue, and bag searches taking place. Despite the security fears, over 63,000 attended the concert. It was televised to 120 countries around the world, with a potential audience of 500 million.

The concert, broadcast by the BBC, featured acts from many groups and individuals including Sir Elton John, and the English National Ballet. It was hosted by Princes William and Harry and opened and closed by Sir Elton John, who is remembered for having played a unique rendition of Candle in the Wind at the Princess’ funeral.

Performances were interspersed with tributes from various public figures including Tony Blair, the former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, and Nelson Mandela, the former President of South Africa. Films showing parts of Diana’s life, with testimony from those who worked with her, were also aired, publicising the Princess’ work around the world, which was to be supported by profits from the concert.

Monday, September 20, 2010

Thirty people are reportedly dead according to La Nación, in the second-to-last day of the Bicentennial of Chile celebrations through all the country. There is one more death than last year’s celebrations. La Nación reports nine deaths on main roads and 21 on rural routes.

The national police issued 255 infringements for driving under the influence of alcohol, and 1,555 for speeding.

“Travel has to be well planned. They must not drive for more than two hours,” an officer told Radio Cooperativa.

A large departure of tourists from beaches or other vacation spots is expected to be at “peak hours” after 18:00 (22:00 UTC).

Friday, February 26, 2010

According to a government official, at least 26 people were killed in a stampede on Thursday at a historic mosque in the northwestern city of Timbuktu, Mali.

“There were 26 killed and 40 wounded,” Oumar Sangare, the Internal Ministry spokesman, told Reuters. However, other news agency reports put the death toll as low as fifteen.

An official, who requested to remain anonymous, said the accident could have begun as a result of renovation work on the Djingareyber mosque—which is made primarily of mud, and was built in the fourteenth century. Construction work blocked off some of the roads, and that could have been a factor in the incident. “The mosque is being renovated, financed by the Aga Khan, and the work is carried out by South African specialists,” the official told the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency.

“Because of these renovations, the passage on the north side of the mosque is closed off. On that side, to get through, the faithful found an improvised alleyway. But the alley couldn’t take the number of people using it. So there was a stampede. Somebody shouted ‘someone has died’ and panic took over,” the same official went on to say.

Others have remarked that rescue services responded “very quickly” to the stampede, and helped the “many injured.”

The Xinhua news agency reports the stampede started when an elderly woman fell in one of the town streets near the city’s main mosque, where a sermon was being conducted in front of a large crowd; a passersby then rushed to assist the woman, apparently disrupting the crowd’s movement and causing the stampede.

“People were circling the mosque, a ritual at each Mouloud [the observance of the Prophet Mohammed’s birthday] and there was a huge crowd build up,” commented Mohamed Bandjougou, one of the witnesses to the event, to AFP by telephone. “There were at least fifteen dead. The bodies were taken to the morgue.”

Authorities warned the number of injured may actually be higher than reported, saying that “we cannot rule out the fact that the number of those injured will increase because some of them are still hiding in their homes instead of coming to the hospital.” A hospital source commented that some of the people hurt were in critical condition, and needed to be evacuated to the capital, Bamako, as soon as possible.

The mosque’s imam, who gave his name as Asseyuti, commented on the incident. “We’re in mourning. What happened is a real trauma. We accept the will of God. He gives us life, he takes it away,” he said.

According to an official statement, Malian president Amandou Toumani Toure is traveling to Timbuktu from Bamako in light of the stampede.

Wednesday, February 16, 2005 U.S. retail-chain Wal-mart Stores will revise their “everyday low price” strategy at Seiyu supermarket in Japan. Seiyu’s year-end loss in 2004 was 12.3 billion yen. The U.S. style low price selling did not appeal to Japanese consumers.

Wal-Mart bought a 6.1% share of the Seiyu company in 2002. At that time, Seiyu had lost money in 3 out of the previous 5 years. Wal-Mart introduced their “everyday low price” selling method to Seiyu, with lineup such as 900 yen fleece wear or jeans imported directly from China. Sales did not grow as expected, since consumers wanted a more varied range of products rather than just cheap prices. “We will adjust our bias to low priced items, and resume selling name-brand goods our customers like to see,” says CEO Masao Kiuchi. Seiyu will go back to their previous way of marketing through inserted fliers showing the daily specials, quite the opposite of Wal-Mart way. (The Nikkei)

Sunday, March 27, 2005

Danville, California – The California-based Engligh language tracker, Global Language Monitor, released its 2005 list of most confusing – yet frequently cited – high tech buzzwords to be “HTTP,” “Voice Over IP” (VoIP), and “Megapixel.” Closely following were “Plasma,” “Robust,” “WORM” and “Emoticon.”

In early March, the group used a predictive index computer algorithm to track specific words and phrases in the media and on the Internet. They were tracked in relation to frequency, contextual usage and appearance in global media outlets.

The Global Language Monitor claims to analyze and catalogue trends in word usage and word choices, focusing on the linguistic impact on various cultures. The GLM says it relies upon a global network of volunteer linguists, professional wordsmiths and other bibliophiles to monitor the trends in the evolution and demise of world languages.

GLM’s list, in order of frequency of use, of the most-confusing technology terms with the group’s explanation as to why they are faulty follows:

1. HTTP – HyperText Transfer Protocol is the standard protocol used for transmitting web pages (which are written in HTML (HyperText Markup Language)), not text written while hyper on too much Starbucks coffee. There are more than 1 billion references to HTTP on the web alone.
2. Voice over IP – Voice over Internet Protocol, (pronounced voyp, similar to Detroit) is a way of transmitting voice data over the Internet. VoIP is becoming more popular as services such as Skype offer people free voice communication with anyone with a broad-band connection.
3. Megapixel – Approximately one million pixels, not a single, big pixel (“mega” is the metric system prefix for million). “Pixel” itself is a technical term which means “picture element”. Digital pictures consist of a grid of millions of pixels, which are square or rectangular dots, each having a single colour.
4. Plasma – A plasma display (commonly used in televisions) is a flat, lightweight surface with a grid of millions of tiny glass bubbles containing plasma. A digitally controlled electric current flows through the bubbles causing the plasma inside to glow various colours. Plasma displays have nothing to do with blood plasma.
5. Robust – Robustness generally means “it won’t break easily.” It supposedly describes computer programs or hardware that have been well-tested and demonstrated to not crash or fail often, but since it is a vague term by nature (how robust is robust?) it is frequently used by marketing types regardless.
6. WORM – While a worm is a type of computer virus, WORM stands for ’Write Once, Read Many’. It describes a file system primarily used for optical disks, such as CDs and DVDs. For example, CD-Rs can only be written (or “burned”) once but afterwards can be read many times (otherwise you could only listen to your music CD once). This excludes re-writable CDs which can be written many times.
7. Emoticon – Emoticon stands for emotional icon. An emoticon is a sequence of characters that look visually like a face and are used in text chat to convey emotion. The most common emoticon is the smiley face – 🙂 – which looks like two eyes and a mouth turned 90 degrees.
8. Best of Breed – Not to be confused with the Westminster Dog Show, a best-of-breed product is a personalized solution made of components from various manufacturers; in other words, it’s a sort of high tech ‘mix-and-match’.
9. Viral Marketing – A recent marketing trend which relies on word-of-mouth to spread, rather than traditional advertising strategies. It is called “viral” because as people talk about it, the marketing message “spreads” to new people, who in turn inform others, and so on, which is how viruses spread. The Burger King “Subservient Chicken” campaign is considered an example of viral marketing. Computer viruses used by spammers to turn desktop computers into “zombie” spam relays are something completely different.
10. Data Migration – Data migration is an idealistic (though usually impossible) concept where data can be used by different versions of the program in which it was created (newer or older). The migration (migration means “to move”) refers to the fact that the data is moved from one version (or program) to another without difficulty or loss of information. It is a subset of backward and forward compatibility.

Other terms being tracked included “client/server,” “solution,” “paradigm,” “backward compatible,” and the “STUN protocol.”

Tuesday, January 3, 2006

The international environmental organisation, Greenpeace, have been shadowing a Japanese whaling fleet currently operating in the Southern Ocean in Australian Antarctic Territory. They claim a minor victory against the six-vessel fleet, saying no whales have been killed since Christmas Eve. However they expect a resumption of whaling and protest activity soon.

Greenpeace has two ships, MV Esperanza and MV Arctic Sunrise, active near Antarctica, in an effort to disrupt the whalers, who intend on slaughtering over 900 Minke whales and 10 Fin whales in the region this summer. The activists aim to stop the Japanese whaling fleet as it tries to catch nearly 1000 whales for what is claimed to be scientific research.

Greenpeace chief Steve Shallhorn states that the protesters have chased the six-ship fleet northwards, with the vessels now away from the designated whaling zone. Greenpeace plan to maintain their efforts to keep the whalers in the public eye.

“What the fleet is doing is trying to outrun Greenpeace so that it can sneak back into the whaling grounds and resume the kill,” he said. “And for that very reason, we’re doing our very best and are succeeding in keeping up with the factory whaling ship. We are certain that they do not want any further publicity.”

He said Greenpeace will continue its high-speed tailing for as long as it takes. “We’re capable of staying out there for many more weeks,” he said. “The [Japanese] fleet is clearly embarrassed by having their actions exposed to the world, since the spotlight on their activities shows what it really is – commercial whaling with a very thin disguise.”

The whalers have been unable to kill any whales since Christmas Eve due to poor weather and harassment by Greenpeace vessels, and the Washington-based Sea Shepherd ship, RV Farley Mowat. The Sea Shepherd is operating independently of Greenpeace but say they are working towards a common objective – “the shutting down of illegal whaling in the Southern Ocean.”

Greenpeace expedition leader Shane Rattenbury says the whalers have a season of about 100 days. “Their quota is 945 whales. If you lose, say, 10 per cent of those through bad weather, they’ve got an average they need to catch of 10 a day and it’s gone 10 days now without having any whales,” he said. “That starts to add up pretty quickly. They’re under a bit of pressure to get on with the business.”

Japan’s Institute for Cetacean Research have rejected the claims made by Sea Shepherd, that Japanese warship was being sent to Antarctica to protect the fleet against the activists.

The Japanese institute spokesman condemned Sea Shepherd over the claim by Farley Mowat captain Paul Watson, who called on the Australian Government to keep the peace.

File:Greenpeace Vessels Esperanza and Arctic Sun.jpg

Sea Shepherd had requested the presence of the Australian navy to monitor events in the Southern Ocean. However, Australia’s environment minister, Senator Ian Campbell, said that Sea Shepherd’s threats to attack the fleet “risk setting back the cause of whale conservation many years”.

Capt Watson said yesterday: “Stop threatening us, Mr Campbell, and charge us if you believe we are acting unlawfully. Stop posing for the Japanese [who] are in blatant violation of international conservation laws.”

Japan’s Fisheries Agency, which conducts the whaling, said the claim was a tactic by Sea Shepherd to try to raise the stakes for extra publicity.

“This is why the environmentalists’ campaign in the Antarctic is a PR stunt: every time they get some media coverage there’s always some member not too far away asking the public for money,” an agency spokesman said in a statement. “Only this time, it completely backfired and now people will question what these groups say.”

The spokesman had no response to Greenpeace’s claim that another vessel had joined the whaling fleet and was refuelling the ships within the boundary of the Antarctic Treaty’s nature reserve.

Mr Rattenbury said the 57 activists and crew aboard the Greenpeace ships were in good health following a quiet New Year’s Day celebration on deck under a midnight sun.

He said his ships were not in contact with the Farley Mowat, which is believed to be closer to the Antarctic ice shelf. The Farley Mowat’s weblog quoted ship captain Paul Watson as saying the Sea Shepherd group had no conflict with Greenpeace, despite earlier British media assertions.

“As far as I am concerned both Sea Shepherd and Greenpeace are working towards a common objective – the shutting down of illegal whaling in the Southern Ocean,” said Paul Watson.

Greenpeace believes the fleet killed at least 25 whales from the time it contacted the whalers just before Christmas.

Thursday, September 6, 2007

Four F3 Tornado fighter jets were launched by the United Kingdom‘s Royal Air Force to intercept Russian military planes. The eight Russian jets were flying in airspace patrolled by Nato, officials from the UK claimed. The long-range bombers were initially followed by Norwegian F16 jets, after Russia’s recent decision to reinstate Cold War-style long-range patrols.

14 strategic bombers were flying on long-range patrol, according to Russia’s Defence Ministry. They also confirmed that none had approached a foreign state and had been shadowed by aircraft from Nato countries.

The Ministry of Defence in the United Kingdom released a statement that the Russian Tupolev Tu-95 Bear aircraft, flying in four loosed pairs, were tracked by Norwegian aircraft before entering Nato airspace on Thursday morning. The UK currently holds responsibility for the Nato airspace, and launched four F3 Tornados from RAF Leeming in North Yorkshire, UK, to identify the bombers. The bombers eventually left the Nato zone, under tracking by UK aircraft and RAF radar in Northumberland.

An MoD spokesman confirmed that Russia was entitled to its long-range patrols, adding ‘The motivation behind any Russian military activity is a matter for the Russian government.’ Lt Col John Inge Oegland, spokesman for the Norwegian armed forces, said there had been several similar incidents in recent months, but that the Russian flights were not causing alarm in Norway.

Relations between Britain and Russia have worsened recently, particularly after Russia’s refusal to allow the extradition of a former KGB bodyguard suspected of murdering emigre Alexander Litvinenko in London last year. Relations with Russia would “continue as normal outside the unresolved extradition request”, a UK Foreign Office spokesman said.